Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema and President Cyril Ramaphosa. Picture: X / @MolotoMothapo
Emotions escalated in Parliament on Tuesday after Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema confronted President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Malema replied to comments by Ramaphosa after the president reprimanded the EFF leader for hurling insults in parliamentary debates.
“It’s important, Honourable Malema, that as we debate, we should play the ball, not the man. You spend a considerable amount of time playing me, the man,” Ramaphosa said in Parliament on Monday.
The president also lambasted Malema for allegedly bringing family members into the debates.
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“You once stood here some two years ago and insulted me and my father and said he was an apartheid police officer. Yes, I am proud to have been the son of a policeman, a very good policeman,” said Ramaphosa.
“I’ve spoken to your grandmother, and I would never stand here and insult your grandmother because I respect her. I also respect you. I am saying this to ensure that as politicians, we must respect each other.”
Malema previously accused Ramaphosa of physically abusing his former wife, but later apologised.
During the Presidency’s budget vote debate on Tuesday, Malema reacted to Ramaphosa’s comments, saying the president “wrongly” stated that he insulted him.
“We never ever made reference to the president’s father in this Parliament and even if we did it would have been a statement of fact and not an insult.
“To say someone’s parent is a nurse will never be used as an insult. To say someone’s parent is a police officer can never be used as an insult.
READ MORE: Mandela ‘turning in his grave’: Malema fires heated barbs at Ramaphosa
“You said I spoke about your father in order for you to drag my grandmother, unfairly so, because my grandmother has got nothing to do with what I am doing here.
“So, I want to state it very clearly that we respect each other and will continue to engage each other robustly,” he told the president.
The EFF leader then took a swipe at Ramaphosa.
“Parliament and political work in general is not for soft-skinned people who will use all languages to complain whenever we give fair, but robust and direct characterisation of their political conduct. Here, we speak truth and nothing else but the truth,” Malema said.
He added: “In politics, the individual’s personal character is key to historical developments, otherwise why is there Nelson Mandela Day.”
Later in the debate, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni responded to Malema and mentioned his alleged involvement in the Venda Building Society (VBS) Mutual Bank scandal.
Ntshavheni criticised the EFF leader for attacking the president instead of focusing on “important issues”.
“The women, the elderly and the poorest of the poor who were members of stokvels [and] burial societies were saying to me, ‘who has a right to question the character of the president’… if anyone else but not honourable Julius Malema because it is not even [about] the money they lost, it’s the impact. They were not able to bury their dead with dignity.”
READ MORE: ‘Everybody who swindled VBS money needs to serve their time’, says Ntshavheni
The minister claimed that people affected by the collapse of VBS could not use their pension money to fund their grandchildren’s education.
“They are now suffering a generation of lost opportunities… why? Because honourable Malema and the EFF got money from VBS. Their party is actually registered by the proceeds of VBS.”
An affidavit by former VBS Mutual Bank chairperson Tshifhiwa Matodzi implicated Malema and EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu in the saga.
The 70-page affidavit, which was later leaked, detailed how at least R2.2 billion was embezzled from the now-defunct bank.
Meanwhile, the VBS case against 13 people was recently postponed to 14 August.
Additional reporting by Vhahangwele Nemakonde.
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